OPINION – WHAT THE US ELECTION INDICATES FOR US
Dangerously, this a bit of a stream of consciousness on what I have been able to absorb, understand and mis-understand, interpret and mis-interpret about the recent U.S. Election.
Personally, I really struggled to understand why people were even considering voting for a person that had, in Court, been found guilty of massive tax evasions (fraud) and sexual assault against women. This is of course putting aside the allegation that he committed some type of treason in his role to encourage a horde of bad-actors to storm against the Capital building last time he lost the election.
And, all of that is before getting to any of his apparent views on other race, sex, religion or cultural values that he was interpreting the “worthy” versus “unworthy” across the country.
As a local reference, I couldn’t imagine for one second a person with all of these qualities running for office; mindful of the media attention that would receive and then considering the general Australian view of calling out bad behaviour, even when it’s one of our best mates doing the bad. “That’s not on mate” springs to mind.
However, the new President (Elect) of the United States did obviously tap into a strong vein of people that wanted to be angry at someone – and he gave these voters plenty of “someone’s” to be angry at, and about.
As I have written in this column previously, people in 2024 are FAR MORE angry (probably myself included – it’s hard to be objective) than they were when I got elected back in 2011. So I really need to ponder to myself – what’s with that?
If you are out there and frustrated about power prices – the blame sits with incredible Government indecisions over the past 10-15 years (probably longer).
If you are out there and frustrated with power reliability concerns – the blame sits with incredible Government indecisions over the past 10-15 years (probably longer).
If you are out there and concerned about cost of living matters – the list of why this is the way it is, is incredibly long and incredibly complex and incredibly within personal opinions. There is no simple answer.
If you are out there and concerned about who gets what assistance from Government and why – this too is incredibly complex, but fair to say that those groups getting more assistance are generally doing worse off and we as Australians have always wanted to help out someone that needed a bit of help. This attitude and culture was born from a time when 90%+ of us were all struggling together. We weren’t selfish – we were fair and honest and supportive.
So for me personally, as your elected representative, I see and hear what happened in the US and I try to put an Australian and NSW perspective on it. I would like to think that in Australia the truth will always matter, and that the desire to lift up anyone that is struggling will always be of most importance. Again, for me, Australians don’t “hate down” by pushing someone else underwater so that another can breathe – ideally we want all to have access to the oxygen of life.